These stories are billed as previously published in newspapers and magazines, so I guess they aren’t really "web fiction", but you gotta wonder a little.

The word "noir" comes up a lot around these essays or tales or whatever they are.  And they are certainly dark.  Prison violence, murder, psychotic episodes, rotten family tricks, overheard urban chaos . . . it’s like eavesdropping on the underside of American dreamscape.

What gets me is the voice of POV or whatever . . . it’s like you are involved.  Not because of great description or anything, something about the way the stories are told:  either first person or by a narrator who is obviously right there in the cell or asylum or crack house or whatever, and talking to you over his shoulder.  Maybe even talking directly to you, telling you that you’re partly responsible for what happened.  And I guess there’s something to that.

Really nice illustrations, stark red on black.  Like maybe this whole collection is.  One of the pieces is called "Portrait in Black, White and Red".  The last scene has the pale, psycho punker girl we’ve been hearing about, dressed in black and dancing in a club spotlight.  She cuts her wrists and lets the blood sprinkle on her.  Gets a big applause.

Just a flesh wound.

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